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Rejected Proposals for Penn Station

By JAY RUTTENBERG and
MIKE REDDYFEB. 26, 2016

The depressing tale of the two Penn Stations is oft told — the fabled Beaux-Arts original, modeled on the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, was rudely demolished in the 1960s, replaced by a dreary rabbit warren, unlovely and unloved. Less well known is how, back in the 1960s, the city selected the current design over several strikingly different alternatives.
As the city once again considers overhauling the station, it seems like a good time to review the runners-up.

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Congestion Solved!

Manhattan’s Midtown traffic problem is tackled head-on, as six north-south car lanes weave through Penn Station’s ground-level concourse. Travelers awaiting their trains are protected from passing cars by elegant black-on-black traffic stripes, a suggested 55 m.p.h. speed limit and the honor code. Over the years, as train travel is increasingly consigned to rail fetishists and the elderly, the car lanes are designed to expand, while the waiting area shrinks to a traffic island.

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Very Rapid Transit

In a slight restructuring of the city’s rail routes, Penn Station assumes all train traffic from the suburban New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut corridors, as well as points farther north, south, east and west. (The realignment leaves Grand Central with a lone shuttle train, which runs between Midtown Manhattan and Scarsdale.) To accommodate the new lines, the number of tracks employed by Penn Station will contract to a half dozen. Subsequently, the station’s departure board will release all track information 45 seconds before a train’s departure — ample time for the fleet-footed to locate and board their trains with minimal shoving.

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Pretzels, Prisoners, Pythons

The station’s food concession area is dispensed with in favor of a single pretzel vendor, the product’s buttery aroma being deemed caloric enough to satiate hungry travelers. In the dead space that traditional rail stations would fill with newsstands, bathrooms and other indulgences is the Pennsylvania Station Correctional Facility, on a 99-year lease to the city. To keep the prisoners entertained, a display on loan from the Bronx Zoo’s reptile and amphibian house lies between their bars and the passengers.

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Subterranean Intimacy

With the building’s ground floor overtaken by a roller rink, the waiting area is relocated beneath the tracks. The subterranean concourse is reached via a single spiral staircase, dazzling in its narrowness. To conserve space and present travelers with a contemporary intimacy, ceilings top off at seven feet. The waiting area is windowless, yet passengers can train their eyes on wall art featuring dusky images of the old Penn Station getting demolished by a wrecking ball. Music by select 20th Century composers — John Cage, Arnold Schoenberg — is piped in to muffle the roar of the trains overhead.

Mike Reddy is an illustrator and designer. Jay Ruttenberg is editor of the comedy journal The Lowbrow Reader.